A team of instructional designers, educators, and the School of Liberal Arts (SLA) academic program coordinator from a nonprofit online college, collaborated on producing short voice-over videos with interactive elements that address the most common technology frustrations of beginning students. These videos were inserted into the "Start Here" page of the pilot study courses. Courses were selected that had a higher than average withdrawal rate and that also tended to have a broad grade distribution for students who completed the course. The videos with voice-over covered basic navigation, such as posting to a discussion board, submitting an assignment to a drop box, reviewing a grading rubric in the grade book, and opening a graded copy of an assignment to view instructor feedback. The orientation element contained interactive tools that allowed students to check their learning of the skills covered in the videos. The orientation videos were available throughout the 8 weeks of the course. After viewing the videos, the students were asked to complete a short survey, which included both quantitative and qualitative feedback. The responses to the survey were extremely positive, ranging from 84.48 to 90.67 on a 100-point scale. The team also examined course withdrawal rates and the grade distribution before and after the insertion of the videos. The data for almost all of the pilot study courses showed a drop in withdrawals after the use of the video orientation element. Several courses showed a significant drop in withdrawals. The examination of the pre-and postintervention grade distribution showed an improvement in grades for almost all of the pilot courses. This improvement in grade distribution was statistically significant in some courses.

This paper examines two of the stated objectives of the government's student loans scheme, 'to increase the resources available to students' and 'to increase economic awareness among students, and their self reliance '. Following Farrell and Tapper (1992) we also consider a third, less explicit objective, that of exerting an influence on the shape of higher education itself, through economic pressure on students to select courses that are earnings related and vocationally oriented.The results of a survey of a random sample of students conducted annually between 1992 and 1996 at the University of Brighton demonstrate a substantial increase in student debt over this period. Among students increasing support for the principles underlying the loan scheme was found, as were high levels of 'economic awareness' and 'self-reliance'. There was no evidence of a demand for changes in the pattern of course provision and it is suggested that this is because of the way in which students have responded to their changed financial situation, in particular the high reliance of many on part-time employment in preference to student loans and a desire to maximise current rather than future earnings.

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An extended information service on prescription medicines was evaluated in four community pharmacies over a period of 11 months, including a three-month pilot phase. Written patient information leaflets (PILs) and structured verbal advice designed according to the preferences of local people were provided by the pharmacist to patients prescribed any of three study drugs -amoxycillin, atenolol or ibuprofen. A total of 1,614 PILs were issued. Data were collected from a sample of 3 11 recipients about their perception and recall of the information service. Altogether, 64 per cent remembered receiving the study leaflet and 56 per cent remembered receiving some verbal information from the pharmacist. More than 80 per cent of service recipients supported the provision of both verbal and written information by the pharmacist. In the main study period (n=203), the types of information respondents could recall receiving most frequently were when to take the medicine (67 per cent), the name of the medicine (53 per cent) and side effects (41 per cent). Sixty seven per cent (40) of those receiving amoxycillin, 61 per cent (43) taking atenolol and 38 per cent (28) taking ibuprofen recognised a side effect of their medicine given in both the leaflet and verbal advice. For all three drugs, side effects were recognised most frequently when included in both the written and verbal information. Support for this aspect of the pharmacist's extended role has been demonstrated in practice and the feasibility of service implementation is discussed.

The acceptability to the general public of an extended role for community pharmacy was investigated using a social survey methodology. Within one locality, a sample of 133 respondents was drawn from four population groups who were likely to be extensive users of community pharmacy services: active elderly people, mothers of young children, carers of people with disabilities and people in full‐time employment. The evidence from the interview survey was supplemented by discussions with community groups representative of the same sections of the population. The results indicate that there is considerable public support for the development of a range of new services in community pharmacies, with a majority of respondents supporting the provision of more information on prescribed medicines, opportunity to discuss minor symptoms with the pharmacist, medicine delivery services, and the holding of patient medication records. There is less support for discussing health promotion with the pharmacist, while cost was found to be a major obstacle to the acceptability of diagnostic testing. Elderly people found all aspects of the extended role less acceptable than did other respondent groups. It is concluded that there is a need to market unfamiliar services, and, if an extended role is to be developed effectively, the nature of the relationship between the roles of the community pharmacist and the GP needs to be demonstrated more clearly to service users.